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by DemonCrowley
Summary: SUMMARY IS SPOILER FREE MAJOR SPOILERS FOR AGE OF ULTRON IN THE STORY. DO NOT OPEN IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE YET. This oneshot has to do with something that happened in the end. A summary with spoilers is in the author's note. Rated T for depicted violence and swearing
1. CHAPTER ONE

**So basically this is a way to deal with how AoU ended because I do NOT agree with how it ended (I also heard a rumor that he signed up for ?three? movies ?) so I went FULL Phil Coulson mode and fixed it. If you're still reading this and still don't understand that this is a spoiler:  
ThIS iS A MAjoR sPOIlEr fOR AvEnGErS AgE OF ulTrON  
Warned ya enough now... Set immediately after the battle on the floating city.  
Feel free to message me with YOUR conspiracies and denials and whatever you thought about them just killed the hot blondie of for the fun of it.  
Also, got a couple messages that I should continue it. I wasn;t planning on it, but then a neat little idea popped into my head. wth right?  
So, Review and if you like it, follow!**

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There was a devastating shock when the floating city incinerated in the sky. The Hawk sunk his head in his hands, staring at the lifeless body of the reason he was still breathing air.

He did a headcount. Pietro, here in front of him with countless holes in his torso, his sister, who was on the island still, protecting the root, Stark, who was hanging underneath there in the sky in his suit of iron. He had seen Hulk drop Nat off on the Helicarrier, so she was safe, but he had jumped off the Helicarrier in pursuit of the bird that shot the eldest Maximoff.

Right there and then, Barton was fairly certain that this would be the end of it all. The end of the Avenger initiative and the end of their battle, but luckily it would not be the end of their world. And he could go back to Laura and the little ones, he could even be there when little Nathaniel was born.

He stared at Pietro, his hair bleached at the tips because of all the experiments. Or because he liked to bleach his hair. Clint hadn't asked, but he had assumed Pietro's original hair color was that of his sister's, since they were twins and all…

It didn't matter anymore. It had never mattered. But Clint felt horrible that the cheeky boy with the lopsided grin decided to switch places with him.

The lifeboat docked into the Helicarrier and everyone seeped out of the boat, leaving Barton to ponder in the complete silence of the now empty docking hall of the Helicarrier.

"Hawkeye." A familiar voice shook him awake. He felt an iron hand on his shoulder.

"Stark," Clint looked up. "You're alive."

Tony nodded. "Of course I am." He looked down to Pietro and the complexion in his face changed. "What happened?"

"He got shot." Clint shook his head. "Jumped in front of the barrel. Saved my life." He clenched his jaw.

"How long was this ago?" Tony asked.

"He's dead, Stark." Clint said.

"Why is it that people can never answer me normally?" Tony sighed deeply as he stepped out of his bust and broken suit. He pulled two bracelets out of the pocket of his sweatpants and clicked them around Pietro's limp wrists.

"Pandora mode," he ordered.

The suit wrapped itself around Pietro and engaged.

"What are you doing?" Clint asked.

"I'm trying to save a life." Tony said stoically. He pushed on his earpiece. "Is anybody copying me?"

" _I am,_ " Hill answered almost immediately.

"How fast can we get a bird to New York?"

" _Two hours, if you leave now,_ " Hill answered.

Tony turned to Clint, "You can fly one, right?"

Clint frowned at Tony, "What the hell?"

" _I have a jet ready for take-off at gate 4. What are your plans?_ " Hill tuned in.

"I have so little time to explain it all to you idiots." Tony motioned his suit to follow him as he jogged away to gate 4, with Clint at his heels. "I have a Pandora mode built into my suit. It can lengthen the life of someone without a pulse up and slash or brain activity to seven hours."

"How?" Clint asked. He buckled up in the pilot's seat and started the engine. "Bird 747 requesting take off."

" _Take off authorized,_ " The radio buzzed back.

"Banner helped me with it, doctor Cho and another doctor." Tony said, he hooked the suit up to a laptop that he found stuffed underneath a chair.

Clint flicked a few buttons. "Closing doors, engine on, buckle up Tony,"

"Wait! Wait!" someone yelled outside.

Tony threw the door open, only to see Wanda Maximoff standing there, red wisps hovering around her hands and her eyes were on fire.

"Lady Maximoff!" Clint smiled. "Good to see you, I thought you were dead. Get in."

"Where is my brother?" Wanda said. "What did you do to Pietro?"

"We are losing valuable time!" Tony said desperate. "Get in the jet and I'll explain everything to you, but _please_ hurry up!"

Wanda put one hesitant foot on the step of the jet, and Tony pulled her in, slamming the door behind her.

"Let's go Barton!"

Wanda pulled loose from Tony's grip. "What is this? You would explain!"

"In a minute charmer," Tony said. He pushed her down in a chair and buckled her up. When he was seated himself, Clint took off with roaring engines.

"Your brother is dead," Tony yelled, trying to out-roar the engine. "But I think I can bring him back! I put him in my suit, which can preserve him for up to seven hours. I shocked his heart back into action and then put him in a chemical coma, feeding him salt and vitamins and all the things he needs to stay alive. See, a brain can go sixteen minutes without oxygen, and everything up to four minutes is ideal, and seven minutes passed between me putting him in the suit and him dying. I hope, at least. I don't know. See, the Pandora has already started preservation and I believe the cause of death have to do with his lungs and heart. The suit pressure pumps the blood through his body and the suit sort of forces him to breathe. It's kinda hard to explain to people who are not as intelligent as me."

Wanda opened her mouth to pass a snarky remark when Clint make a noise and flicked some buttons. "We reached altitude,"

" _Autopilot engaged,_ " Friday said.

"I miss JARVIS," Clint sighed.

" _Don't be a bitch about it,_ " There was a short pause. "… _Sir._ "

Tony chuckled, already at his keyboard. "She still has some glitches,"

He turned to Wanda. "You there, do your witch thing on him, check him for brain activity… and whoops! Beat you! It's gonna be a real surprise though, because after four minutes too many cells die and the brain suffers severe damage because too many cells die off. But, I am a genius and you are a twin, so I think together with the best doctor in the world, whom I know of course know personally. Veronica dear, can you get doctor Kennedy on the phone for me dear?"

" _On it Mr. Stark."_

He grinned.

"Are you enjoying the game you're playing, Stark?" Wanda said disdainful.

"You know, you say Stark like it's not the name of the man who's about to save your brother," Tony said, jamming the keyboard with inhumane speed.

"I say it like it's the name of the man who killed my parents," Wanda said. "And I am not a witch."

"I don't want to interfere or anything," Clint said. "But I think you need to lay down the mojo. Your mind control thing is interfering with my systems."

" _Mr. Stark,_ " Friday said. " _I have doctor Kennedy on the phone for you._ "

"Cool," Tony said as he picked up the horn. "Theresa?"

" _What's wrong? Your assistant was, uhm, persistent. What happened to JARVIS?_ "

"JARVIS is busy saving the world," Tony smiled. "Where are you?"

" _Why, are you going to ask me out?_ "

"No, but I have a severely injured team member." Tony said.

" _How severe?_ " Theresa asked.

"Well, he's not death yet. Technically."

" _Tony I am not a miracle worker._ " Theresa sighed. " _So hold your goddamn horses._ "

"I got the Cradle at the HQ in New York."

" _Cho's Cradle?_ "

"Yes," Tony nodded, "I checked, and he has no more bullets in him. I put him in my suit."

" _The Pandora mode?_ " Theresa asked. " _Are you sure?_ "

"I cannot be sure, but we can try."

" _We need a donor, blood, maybe even organ tissue._ " Theresa sighed. " _Just putting him in the cradle won't do it._ "

"He has a twin," Tony shrugged. "And she's sitting next to me."

" _I can be at the HQ in three hours,_ " Theresa said. " _If I leave now._ "

"Three hours?!" Tony frowned. "We are at the HQ in," he checked his watch, "Ninety minutes?"

" _Unlike you, I don't have a private jet._ " Theresa chuckled.

"I'll get you one. What's your nearest airport?" Tony got his phone out of his pocket.

" _Reagan in DC._ " Theresa said.

"I'll send additional info to your phone. Get your ass over there. Wheels up in thirty. Get a cab, get Starbucks. I don't care, bill me."

" _See you in New York._ " Theresa said, and she hung up the phone.

"Friday, you got me there?"

" _I have alerted Ronald Reagan airport of the urgency of the situation and the moment doctor Kennedy arrives they will screen her and get her to New York ASAP._ "

"Friday," Tony grinned. "What would I do without you?"

"Use JARVIS."

Clint chuckled. "Dang Tony, would you like some ice to cool that sick burn?"

"Shut up birdie." Tony growled. He sat back down in a chair again. "All we can do now is hope we get there in time."

"He's dreaming," Wanda said, with tears in her eyes. "I can feel him. But his dreams, they don't feel like him. They don't feel like his consciousness usually feels."

"We're doing everything we can," Tony said. "I'm doing everything I can,"

"I appreciate your efforts, but what if he wakes up and he's not my brother anymore?" Wanda asked.

"We'll worry about that when he wakes up," Tony said, and he got up again to check Pietro's vitals.

…

They arrived at the HQ an hour later, forty minutes ahead of schedule. Doctor Kennedy was already sitting inside Banners lab, running around the Cradle with three tablets in her hand and a laptop on the table.

"I got him here," Tony said. "We need to get him out of the suit and into the Cradle quickly. The suit is keeping him alive."

"I've set up everything," Doctor Kennedy said, "Let's do this."

Tony walked up to his suit and held his hands out, but before he gave an order, he turned to Wanda. "You might want to close your eyes, Maximoff. He's been through a lot."

Wanda's jaw set, but she turned around anyway. She didn't want to admit it, but she didn't want to see the bloody marks on her brothers torso. There was a myth that twins could feel each other's well being, and she was already sick to the stomach.

"Disengage." Tony ordered. There was the metallic sound of the suit pulling itself from Pietro and Tony was just in time to catch the boy and lift him to the Cradle.

"You're a big boy!" Tony said, grinning. He put Pietro down and doctor Kennedy quickly hooked him up. She pressed a couple buttons and the latch of the Cradle closed.

Kennedy walked up to the laptop and started hacking a code in.

"How's Cho doing?" Tony asked.

"Well, she's hurt pretty bad, but she'll make it." Kennedy mumbled distracted.

"Can I help you?" Tony asked.

"Get everyone out." The doctor looked up and grinned. "And get me a pumpkin spice latte. Whole milk, two pumps caramel and extra cream."

Tony nodded. "You heard the doctor, everyone out."

Clint started to get up, but Wanda didn't move. She even sat down. "I'm not moving." She said. "I won't speak. I promise."

Theresa nodded. "She can stay, no problem. I might need some tissue samples of her to fix Pietro's organ damage."

"Do you want something too?" Tony asked, but Wanda ignored him. "Suit yourself."

"And now we start to dance," Theresa mumbled.

Tony quickly went to get the order at the Starbucks, strategically placed across Avenger Tower. It served everyone's favorite seasonal drinks, including the Pumpkin Spice Latte, which was Natasha's favorite.

"Mr. Stark, how can I help you?" the young girl behind the counter smiled.

"Uhm, a Pumpkin Spice with whole milk, two pumps caramel and extra cream." Tony said. Now that everything slowed down to a halt, he felt how tired he was. He'd been so busy with Pietro, and not getting killed himself…

He rolled his shoulders, cracked his knuckles and patiently waited for his order to be called. He was glad it wasn't very busy, because if he would have to wait long he suspected he would fall asleep.

"PSL whole milk extra caramel extra cream for Mr. Stark!" the barista called.

Tony went up to get his drink and the boy smiled. "Miss Romanoff in a mood again?"

Tony smiled; "Something like that…"

He walked back to the HQ, to drop off the coffee at doctor Kennedy and offer Wanda a place to sleep, but they both looked very focused and Tony didn't dare to disturb them. He put the coffee down and scribbled something on a piece of paper about the location of the guest rooms before wandering off to his own bedroom.

…

When he emerged, a good six hours later, Avenger Tower was a turmoil of people. Pepper had arrived a couple of hours ago from Stark HQ and the rest of the team had gathered there too. Banner was missing and Romanoff had a couple scratches, but everyone was fine.

Except for Pietro, that was.

Kennedy got him ticking again, and the Cradle was currently buzzing with life, trying to fix Pietro's internal damage, and Wanda was sitting on top of it, red strings dancing around her hands and her eyes glowed a dark red.

"Don't disturb her," Kennedy whispered. "She needs to concentrate."

Tony shrugged and turned around, joining the rest for silent coffee sipping and blank staring.

It took three more hours for doctor Kennedy and Wanda to emerge from Banner's lab.

"Is there a more suitable place where we can set Pietro up?" Kennedy asked. "He's not safe yet and we'll have to see how he wakes up."

"We can put him in one of the extra guestrooms," Tony proposed.

They quickly moved Pietro, which proved to be quite the mission since he was now out of the Cradle and hooked up to lots of machinery.

"Is he gonna make it?" Tony asked. He was dragging the IV behind him.

"He's conscious," Wanda said. "He's just, sleeping."

She was holding his hand tightly, as if she feared that when she slacked off for a second he'd be gone again.

…

Things slowly went back to normal again, Barton went home and little Nathanial Pietro was born. Avenger tower was slowly restored to how it was before Ultron wrecked the place.

And all that time, Wanda was sitting next to Pietro, holding his hand, only leaving the room to go to the bathroom. Eventually, Tony gave up on asking her to stretch her legs or join them for dinner and just brought meals up to her room and put up an extra bed in Pietro's room.

After two weeks, Wanda started to get desperate. She felt her brother's consciousness, she knew he was there under a think foggy blanket of sleep, but he wouldn't get out of it. Okay, he nearly died and he needed to recover, but the Cradle had done most of the work.

Tony had warned Wanda that Pietro might come out different, or with memory loss, or not at all, but Wanda wouldn't give up.

One night, when it was slowly getting dark, and Wanda was turning on the lights when her brother started stirring.

"W-Wanda?"

Wanda was at his side in mere seconds. "Pietro?"

"What happened?" He said.

Wanda kissed his forehead. "Don't speak, you need to rest,"

"Did I die?" Pietro asked.

"Nearly." Wanda said. "But you're gonna be fine."

She tangled her fingers in his dirty hair, on the verge of sobbing. She was so glad that her brother was back again. The full impact of his consciousness arose, not entirely out from under this thick layer of sleep, but there again, for Wanda to latch onto.

Pietro laughed, raspy and throaty, but he laughed.


	2. CHAPTER TWO

**Sooooooo... I wasn't gonna do a multichapter AT ALL but I got five chapters typed up and I'm still going steady (which is extremely rare for me...)  
Anyhow, enjoy!**

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CHAPTER TWO

Immediately after Pietro woke up, Tony flew doctor Kennedy back to New York again, so she could make sure he would recover best.

She walked into Avenger Tower with this huge smile on her face and a PSL in her hand.

"Smug is not a good look on you, Theresa," Tony grinned. It was a blatant lie, Theresa was a very good looking woman and a garbage bag would be a good look on her.

"Neither is arrogant on you, Stark," Kennedy grinned back. "Pietro still in his bedroom?"

"He fell asleep again," Tony shrugged. "Guess he needed to rest."

Doctor Kennedy took the elevator up to the eleventh floor, the floor with the guest accommodations, and knocked on the door.

"Come in," Wanda said. She sounded tired.

Kennedy entered the room. "Hello Wanda, how are you?"

"You don't have to feel sorry for me, doctor Kennedy," Wanda got up. "I don't want people to feel sorry for me."

"I'm not feeling sorry for you," Kennedy sat down on the side of the bed and listened to Pietro's heart and lungs. "I asked you how you were doing, since you look like a sheet with eyes."

She moved away from Pietro and onto Wanda, feeling her pulse and listening to her lungs.

"Go away, you are here to help Pietro." Wanda said.

"You need to rest, too," Kennedy said. "When your brother wakes up, he's going to need you."

Wanda frowned.

"Tony put a bed in here," she continued. "I propose you make use of it."

She fiddled with the IV drip and left the room, shooting a meaningful look Wanda's way before closing the door behind her.

Steady paced, she walked to Tony's workshop, two floors below.

"We need to help Wanda," she said, sticking her head around the corner.

Tony was arm deep into the engine of a small Chevy. He pulled himself up with a groan and wiped his hands on a dirty cloth.

"I can't," He shrugged. "She won't listen to me. I would like to go home too and you know that, but I can't leave her behind. She'll starve herself."

"You have an entire company, leave someone to care for her." Kennedy said.

"They won't interest themselves enough in Wanda. Or too much." Tony shrugged. "One will only bring up food and the other will hover around her like a hummingbird."

"You care about them." Kennedy frowned.

"I have a penance to repay," Tony shook his head. "I started paying that the day I build Mark One. I won't stop paying it until the day I die. I've ruined the lives of these children and I won't ever be able to give them their parents back, but I can try to repay them."

"By working on cars and bringing them dinner," Kennedy pulled up an eyebrow.

"Works for me and works for Wanda." Tony said casually. He picked up the wrench and wanted to continue on the Chevy, when they both felt a surge of cold racing through their heart.

"Something's wrong," Kennedy said. She had no idea how she knew that, she just did.

"Very wrong," Tony dropped the tool again and raced up the stairs, Kennedy on his heels.

Wanda was sitting in the room, crying, pushing and tugging on her brother.

"Help him!" she begged.

Kennedy shoved Wanda out of the way and started on heart massage. "Tony- defibrillator in the corner!" she said, a little short of breath.

"Do I need to call an ambulance?" Tony said, handing her the paddles.

Kennedy shook her head, cutting through Pietro's shirt with one of her keys. She bared his chest and rubbed the paddles together. "He won't make it to the hospital. All clear!" she said.

Tony grabbed Wanda, who was desperately clasping the bed and yelled back: "Clear!"

Kennedy shocked Pietro once, twice, three times before his heart started back up again. She checked his lungs. "He's not breathing. Tony, if I don't get a tube in, his heart will stop again in a minute or so."

"Do what you have to do," Tony said.

Kennedy turned around to a giant suitcase lying besides Pietro's bed. "I need you to call a hospital and tell them they need to bring CCU equipment over."

"Will they do that?" Tony asked.

"For me they will, and otherwise you'll have to pull your credit card, rich boy." Kennedy grinned. She quickly cleaned a scalpel and Pietro's neck with some iodine before opening his trachea and fitting a small tube in. She connected the tube to something that looked a lot like a bellow.

She pumped it softly, on the rhythm of her own breath, and Pietro's chest started rising and falling again.

"They're being annoying," Tony reported and then, back into the phone, "Yes, I'm talking about you, mister. How hard can it be? If you have to get a transport out to pick him up, can't you transport the equipment over here?"

Silence. A high rabble over the phone.

"You know what? I might just. Get everything ready, I'll have a man there in twenty." And he hung up the phone. "Obviously they want us to move Pietro to the hospital."

"It's too dangerous," Kennedy shook her head. "It's a fucking miracle he's still kicking. He won't survive a trip to the hospital."

"Yeah, that's what I said." Tony nodded and he raised the phone to his ear. "Hey, Happy. I need you to take a truck and swing by Presbyterian Hospital. … Yes I know. … No, miss Potts won't mind. Have her call me."

"How long?" Kennedy asked.

"He's ten minutes out to the hospital, but he still needs to get hold of a truck. Half an hour?" Tony shrugged.

Kennedy nodded. "I'm gonna need someone to stay with me and I'm gonna need a bottle of water."

"I'll get the water. I don't think miss Maximoff would leave her brother for something as puny as a bottle of water." Tony grinned.

Wanda studied the tall Avenger as he walked out of the room. After nearly a month, she still failed to see through him. Did he do this out of fear? Was Stark afraid of getting to close to something before losing it again?

She listened to the concentrated breathing of Theresa. Why was she doing it? She dropped everything in Washington to come save her brother. How could Wanda ever repay her?

"Why are you doing this?" Wanda asked.

"Doing what?" Kennedy asked.

"You rushed to New York the instant Stark called you. Why?"

"I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and…" Kennedy started on the middle part of her oath, but Wanda interrupted her rather coldly.

"There are sick people in Washington." She said.

"There are more doctors in Washington." Kennedy countered. "To this day, Cho and I are the only two physicians who can operate the Cradle. Cho is still in the hospital and … why are we even having this discussion? I saved your brother."

"I come from a world where nothing comes for nothing." Wanda said.

"What an ugly world that is" Kennedy said. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay. It was never that bad." Wanda looked to her brother, awfully pale, greasy hair and hollow eyes. "He always took care of me. Never failed to mention he was my elder."

"He sounds like the typical brother, then." Kennedy smiled. "My brother was like that, too. If it weren't for him, I'd probably be sleeping on the street right now. He worked so hard to put me in school."

"Was?" Wanda asked softly. She felt a little bad about being so rude, but she was so nervous and constantly on edge.

"He passed away a couple of years ago." Kennedy smiled. "Cancer. I felt that I could finally pay him back, show what his investment in me was worth it, but I failed and he died."

"I'm sorry." Wanda said. "I can't imagine what that must feel like." Tears sprang to her eyes again. "I don't _want_ to imagine what that must feel like."

Kennedy smiled. "And I'm going to give everything to make sure you won't have to."

…

But Pietro didn't wake up after that any more. He had that one, happy minute before he sunk back into that hazy cloud of sleep through which Wanda couldn't penetrate.

With Happy's quick delivery, they hooked Pietro up to life support and poked and prodded, trying to get him out of his coma. Wanda even attacked his mind, trying to freak him out of his sleep, but it only gave him nightmares.

Doctor Kennedy gave up after three more days. "I think we need to call it off, Wanda." She said, softly. "I'm so sorry."

Wanda shook her head, in shock. "No. We… I… I cannot let him go. It isn't time yet. It isn't."

Tony, who was standing in the corner, scraped his throat. "Unpopular opinion." He started.

"Do we want you to finish?" Doctor Kennedy scratched her chin.

"What if we pull the plug?" Tony continued.

"I just said that," Kennedy frowned. "Just a little more… subtle."

"No," Tony shook his head. "That's not what I mean. I mean, he even woke up three days ago. What if he's okay to breathe again?"

"He nearly died," Kennedy frowned. "Surely you wouldn't want to put this to the test?"

"What other options to we have?" Tony shrugged. "Sometimes you have to look at it from the cold side. He stays on that machine, he'll live for a couple more weeks. We pull the plug, he might start breathing again."

"It can cause severe brain damage." Kennedy protested.

"He _literally died_ a month ago." Tony sighed. "Brain damage is the least of our worries."

"Do it." Wanda said. She'd been quiet so far, staring at her brother's face, but not really seeing him. "I'd rather have no brother than half a brother."

"He could come out different." Doctor Kennedy warned. "Memory loss, change in personality."

"Is there a chance he wouldn't remember me?" Wanda absently touched her brother's white locks.

"I don't know." Kennedy walked over to the life support and pressed a couple of buttons.

The room turned silent for a moment, and apart from all the growling machines and the soft _beep, beep, beep_ , of Pietro's heart on the monitor, no one made a sound.

"Do it," Wanda said, softly. She held her brother's hand and closed her eyes. Tears fought their way through her lashes and rolled down her cheeks, dripping from the point of her chin onto the white bed sheets.

Kennedy set her jaw, and closed the tube in Pietro's throat that supplied him of air. His chest stopped heaving, and everyone stared in silence at the boy. Pietro's heartbeat softly died away, becoming more and more irregular as time progressed.

The monotone beep was deafening in that room, and Tony never thought that something would get to him so badly after all he'd seen, but the sight of Wanda Maximoff and Pietro Maximoff was heartbreaking.

The silence became even more deafening when Kennedy turned the heart monitor off, and all everyone could hear were Wanda's soft sobs.

Until the unthinkable happened. A good thirty seconds after the last heart beat, Pietro heaved in a gasp of air and started breathing heavily. Wanda's head shot up and her fingers roamed his chest, searched for the security of that beating heart, and she cried even more, of happiness and relief.

Kennedy shoved her away from Pietro and started taking his vitals. She felt his pulse, his heart and lungs and shone a bright lamp into his eyes.

"He's alive." Kennedy said. "Son of a… you were right, Stark."

Tony shrugged. "I do that more often. People tend to forget about it."

Wanda reclaimed her spot at Pietro's side, took up his hand again and called his name. "Pietro, Pietro, say something!"

The blond boy opened his eyes and looked at his sister, a little puzzled. "Gdzie jestem?" he asked. "Kim jestem? Kim _jestes_?"

* * *

 **A/N After a lenghty discussion with myself I chose for Polish as Pietro's native language. There might be mistakes in there three sentences, because I used google translate... If you are polish and this is wrong, let me know I'll change it.  
Pls review!**


	3. CHAPTER THREE

**Okay guys. wow.  
** **This probably sounds really lame, but I didn't really expect this much follows and favs. 31 guys. 31 of you out there reading this! Thanks a lot to SayuriVampire16 for helping me out with the Polish.  
** **Also, shoutout to IA29 for being my 10th reviewer!  
** **Enjoy this chapter and tell me what you think!**

* * *

CHAPTER THREE

There were three people in front of him. A lady with skin as dark as ebony, her thick black hair pulled back in a knot, a girl with tangled brown hair and hollow cheeks and a middle aged, though physically fit man with a goatee.

He frowned and tried to sit up, but he couldn't lift himself. His arms collapsed underneath the heaviness of his own weight. His tongue searched for words, but it was so dry that he could only gasp.

"Pietro, Pietro, say something!" The Hollow Girl said. Her voice sounded desperate and broken, and she looked like she hadn't slept for weeks.

He frowned. "Gdzie jestem?" and as he asked that question he also realized, that he had no idea who he was, or who she was. "Kim jestem? Kim _jeste_ ś?"

He saw despair on her face, but they didn't let him think about it for very long.

"Polish was my mother's language," the Hollow Girl said. "He doesn't remember who he is, where he is and who we are."

She tried to pretend the words didn't impact her, but for some reason he was able to see right through her, and he felt the pain he inflicted with his ignorance.

"So he doesn't speak English anymore?" the Goatee Man asked.

"I don't know…" The Ebony Lady stepped forward and grabbed his wrist, her fingers roughly searching for the strength of his pulse. "Can you understand me?"

He noticed that he did in fact understood what the others in the room were saying. It took him a few times, but when he found his tongue, he found that he also spoke the other language. The 'English'.

"Yes," he said. He had a weird accent. "I think I do."

The Ebony Lady sighed with relief. "Well, that makes things easier. How are you feeling?"

"I don't know," He said. He didn't know. He felt a little confused and tired, and possibly a little hung over. Did he drink a lot? He had no idea. "Hung over?"

The Goatee Man laughed. "Of all things…"

"What is his name?" the Ebony Lady pointed to the Goatee Man.

"How should I know? I've never seen him before." He frowned. "You are all making me tired."

"I know, Pietro," the Ebony Lady nodded. "But I have a few more questions. Do you know her name? Or even who she is?" she pointed to the Hollow Girl.

'Pietro' she had said. Was that him? Pietro… did that name belong to him?

He looked at the Hollow Girl and something scratched at the back of his mind, but there were walls in his mind, and he felt like he was locked inside his own consciousness.

"I… I don't know…" he admitted.

The Hollow Girl looked at the Ebony Lady with tears in her eyes. "Tell me he'll be okay. Tell me he'll remember."

"He's suffering from Retrograde Amnesia," the Ebony Lady said. "Chances are big it's gonna resolve itself, but he's gonna need all the help he can get."

"Retrograde Amnesia?" the Goatee man said. "That is amnesia caused by serious head trauma, right?"

Doctor Kennedy shook her head. "It doesn't specify how the amnesia was caused, just the type, and this basically means that he has lost everything from before his… incident."

She turned to him again. "You had an awful lot of luck, young man."

"He lost his entire memory," the Hollow Girl frowned. "You're calling that 'an awful lot of luck'?"

"As opposed to being dead? Kinda." Goatee Man shrugged and got up. "I'm gonna go back downstairs. I bet you have a lot of tests to do and my presence won't be necessary, I'll just be distracting you."

Ebony Lady nodded. "Yes, so," she turned to him. "You really remember _nothing_ at all?"

He dug in his memory, but it felt as if he was standing in a familiar house, or street, but it was so misty that he couldn't look around him, and he had no idea which way to step.

"Mist." He said. "I remember mist."

"That is probably my mistake," the Hollow Girl said. "When he was in the coma, I attacked his mind to try and scare him out of his sleep. One of the tactics I used was driving his consciousness into a corner by surrounding it by mist."

"It probably didn't really cause the amnesia," The Ebony Lady reassured the Hollow Girl.

"How can I help him?" the Hollow Girl asked.

"I propose you stay out of his mind," the Ebony Lady said. "Most likely there is a way you can give him his memories back, but as long as you haven't got your powers under control, there is a chance you can permanently harm him."

The Hollow Girl bit her lip. "I won't. But there must be other ways."

The Ebony Lady nodded, "Triggers. We need to trigger him."

"With what?" The Hollow Girl asked.

The Ebony Lady frowned. "I have no idea. Things that remind him of his past. Weird thing is, you're the biggest trigger I can imagine, since you're his sister and have spend your entire life together."

"He had a picture of us." The Hollow Girl said. "Our family."

He didn't really register what they said, but he noticed she had the same accent as him. Maybe they came here together. Maybe they belonged? He knew one thing for certain, and that was that he loved that Hollow Girl, deeply and worryingly. He felt as if she meant the world to him and he couldn't live without her.

"I know I love you," he said to the Hollow Girl. "But I think I'd like to go sleep now."

He didn't wait for the Hollow Girl's reaction and closed his eyes, sinking into sleep again.

…

He was sitting at a table with three others. A little girl his age, her hair in little pigtails tickling her neck, sat next to him. A stern lady with long brown hair and a tall man with black hair and a premature touch of grey at the temples sat opposite of them, silently eating their dinner. The food in front of him was gray, and the room around him was even grayer. There were no trinkets, no luxuries. Everything in the room served a purpose. It smelled faintly of grass.

The little girl next to him was babbling happily. She went on about how her day had been, telling the man and the lady in front of him all about a new boy at school, whom she had fallen in love with. He felt a little angry when she told this, he didn't know anything about that boy? What if he would hurt her? He knew that if that were to happen, he would be furious, but he didn't exactly know why.

The woman in front of him smiled at him, interrupting the little girl's blabbering; "What are you daydreaming about, Pietro?"

He smiled and opened his mouth to respond, but then something hit the floor below them with such force that it blew a hole in the concrete surface beneath their feet. The table sunk away in the fresh hole, pulling the man and the lady in front of him with it, into black clouds of dust.

His first instinct was to grab the girl and push her away from the hole, and his second was to find a place to hide. Hide, until it all went away.

He opened his mouth to warn her, but it immediately filled with ashes and dust. He coughed and coughed, until everything went black.

…

"Pietro," someone said softly, wiping his cheeks with a bony hand.

He took a deep breath, trying to spit out the ashes, until he realized there were no ashes, only dry air he was heaving in as if he was drinking water after a hike through the desert. His cheeks were wet, but he didn't know why. The Hollow Girl was sitting next to him, wiping his tears away before they trickled down into his hair.

"Pietro?" he asked. "Is… is that me?"

"What were you dreaming about, Pietro?" The Hollow Girl asked.

"Am I Pietro?" He was so focused on finding out, that he nearly forgot about his dream.

The Hollow Girl smiled and nodded, but he still didn't believe her. It felt as if the name Pietro didn't belong.

"What do you remember?" she asked.

"I had a dream…" He said. "I don't know if it is true."

"Tell me about it." The Hollow Girl pushed him to start talking.

"A room. Dinner." he started. There was a question mark in his voice. "Ashes."

The hollow girl's eyes filled with tears. "Yes. Our parents got killed in a bombing. Do you remember?"

"Only a little." He closed his eyes and tried to picture the stern lady and tall man. Did he remember? He could nearly taste the ashes in his mouth, the stroke of fear in his heart, but the most overwhelming feeling was a surge of love for the Hollow Girl. "I…" he started, but he wondered if it was a good idea to tell her. Were they siblings? Lovers? Did he secretly adore her?

"I love you," he said, frowning. "I don't know anything but that."

She smiled and kissed his forehead. Her lips were cracked and dry, and felt reassuringly rough to the touch. "I love you too, Pietro."

He smiled, and even though everyone had been calling him that weird name for a while, only now it fell right into his mind. It seemed to fit perfectly in that sentence, said by her, addressed to him.

"I'm Pietro."

She nodded. "Yes."

He, Pietro, lifted a hand, to shakily touch her angular cheek. "Who are you?"

"We're twins," The Hollow Girl said. "You're my brother, remember?"

Everything he felt for her fell into place. He loved her so fiercely, so naturally and it made perfect sense why. "We're… twins…" he said, softly slowly. A name dawned in his mind. A very important name. It was as if it was written down in front of him, but just out of reach. Just too far away to focus and read.

"W-" he started. He was so close, he could taste the sound of it on his tongue. It was a name that carried fear and love, anger and despair.

And suddenly, it was there.

"Wanda?"

And she nodded. "Yes, Pietro, Wanda."


	4. CHAPTER FOUR

**I went to see Age of Ultron again last night... for the fourth time... It's still fantastic. The ending still doesn't make sense. Anyhow, thanks everyone for the follows and fav and review and let me know what you think about this chapter!**

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CHAPTER FOUR

They didn't tell him a lot about what happened. Just that he'd been in an accident, that he nearly died and then plunged into a coma. The Ebony Lady told him it would be better if he remembered everything himself, so he still didn't know any names but Wanda's.

His sister was the most important thing in his life. She never went from his side for long, was there when he fell asleep and was still there when he woke up, caressing his hand, or cheek, or sleeping in a sitting position next to him, her head on the mattress. There was a bed on the other side of the room, but she never made use of it.

After two nights of watching her sleep in the chair, he pulled her in bed next to him, not only because he wanted her to get a good night's sleep, but also because he needed her. She anchored his confused being to this room, this point, this now.

…

The ashes in his mouth had returned, they were warm, settling in every crevice of his body. There was hard concrete beneath his shoulder, and a little girl with pigtails who had her face buried in the crook of his neck.

There was a tremble in the floor and the little girl started shaking in his arms, quavering with fear.

"It's gonna be okay," He kissed the girl on her head, tasting the concrete dust in her hair. "We're gonna be okay."

He looked over the little girl's shoulder, to the hole in their floor and the lone shell, their ticking time bomb without a timer.

He could read what it said on the side. Those five letters, that arrogant logo, staring him in the face, daring him to get out from under the bed.

 _Tick, tock, tick, tock._

Any moment, after any tremor from collapsing buildings or gushes of the wind, the shell seemed to grin at him.

 _I could level you and your sister in a second,_ it seemed to say. _Find the courage to climb out from where you're hiding and I'll crush you like an ant._

He told his sister that they were coming for them, even though he wasn't sure if they were. More than once he wondered if it wasn't better to take their chances. Would he rather die than stay underneath the bed any moment longer? Yes, he would. But would his sister? Could he take the risk of clearing the path for her and leave her behind with no family at all? Orphaned and alone, she would fall victim of things he didn't even want to think about.

So he waited. He lost count of the hours. He didn't have a clock, no view on a window, and eventually they came.

He first heard the dogs, sniffing and climbing, kicking loose stones down the rubble of what once was their flat.

"Watch out!" he yelled. "The bomb didn't go off! The bomb didn't go off!"

He yelled that until his throat went sore, until he thought he heard someone yell back.

"They're here," he whispered to his sister. "They're coming to save us."

The rescue took long. He didn't know if it took any longer than the time they had spend waiting, but it surely felt that way.

He sunk away in a trance of fear, despair and absolute thirst, but he desperately clung to the name dancing on the shell, the logo burned on his retinas.

"Stark." He whispered. "Stark. Stark. Stark."

…

"Pietro, wake up!" there she was again, his anchor.

Startled, he opened his eyes. "Stark!" he yelled. "Stark!"

"What is wrong, Pietro?" Wanda said. "Doctor Kennedy said you had to talk about it, remember? To make the memories return."

Pietro, who only now noticed that he was sitting upright, sunk back into his pillows again, pulling his sister with him. He felt the instinct to protect her, keep her safe, even though the bomb wasn't there and they were lying in a bed instead of under one.

"More ashes." He said. "A bed."

He was silent for a moment. "Stark."

"What do you remember about Stark?" Wanda asked.

"His name on the bomb. The fear in our hearts." Pietro said. "I hate that man."

Wanda tangled her fingers through his hair, but he pushed her away. She looked at him, puzzled.

"I feel filthy." He said apologetically. "I haven't washed in weeks."

Wanda smiled and pulled the blankets up again. "In the morning, okay? I need to ask doctor Kennedy and I really can't wake her up at three in the morning after all she's done for us."

"Doctor Kennedy," Pietro said. "Is she the Ebony Lady?"

"The Ebony Lady?" Wanda asked.

Pietro stared up the ceiling and nodded. "Yes. There's you, and the Goatee Man and the Ebony Lady."

"What did you call me before you knew my name?" Wanda asked.

"The Hollow Girl," Pietro admitted. "Because of your eyes, they were so tired and empty."

"You couldn't have known the Ebony Lady, she came in after the incident." Wanda yawned. "The Goatee Man, however, you did know."

"Who is he?" Pietro asked.

"His name is Tony Stark…" Wanda bit her lip.

"The man from the shell?" Pietro asked.

"Yes," Wanda nodded. "But please, Pietro, we need to leave that behind us."

"How can I?" Pietro half-shouted. "I only found out a minute ago!"

He was getting so heated about this man, what he had done to them. He wanted revenge. "He murdered our parents!" he yelled.

"He had no idea!" Wanda said. "He told me, he didn't know his bombs were used to attack civilians. The moment he found out, he shut down his factories."

Pietro set his jaw. There was so much anger, fed by fear and despair. "I can't let it go."

"You'll need to learn to." Wanda said. "But not just yet, okay? Calm down and try to sleep some more. First thing tomorrow morning is a shower."

Pietro settled into the cushions once again and closed his eyes, wrapping his arms around his sister. "It's gonna be okay."

"I know Pietro," Wanda said softly. "You're here."

…

The following morning when the Ebony Lady came in, Pietro found himself staring at her. Wanda wasn't there to reprimand him, she was taking a shower.

"You're doctor Kennedy." He stated.

She smiled and nodded. "Did Wanda tell you? I suppose I could've just introduced myself, but I wanted to find out if you could distinguish memory loss from memory you haven't made yet."

She sat down on the side of the bed. "How are you feeling today?"

"I want to take a shower." He stated.

Kennedy pulled up an eyebrow and pulled her trusty stethoscope out to listen to Pietro's heart and lungs. He let it happen.

"You sound strong." Kennedy nodded. "We suspect you only survived because of the enhancement that sped up your metabolism and allowed you to go into extended homeostasis, so you could be 'dead' for a little longer than a normal human being."

"Dead?" Pietro asked.

"See it as if you went into cardiac arrest." Kennedy said.

"Which I did," Pietro smiled.

"Kinda." Kennedy got off the bed and nodded. "I think you're strong enough to get out of bed. Just be careful."

Pietro threw the blankets off him and swung his legs out of bed, getting up quickly.

Blood rushed to his head and he felt dizzy. His vision blurred and he quickly sought refuge at the wall opposite of him.

"Whoa!" He heard Kennedy say. "You haven't walked in weeks! Can you not go full speed right away?"

"Full speed?" Pietro asked. He tried to get back to bed, and now felt the surge of air when he got there faster than humanly possible.

And from the bed he ran to the wall again, and then to the window, and then to the door, and then back to the wall.

Kennedy wasn't a blur, more a slow motion version of herself, raising her hand slowly.

Halfway on his way on his return to window, his knee gave away under him and he plummeted to the floor.

"Pietro!" Kennedy was on his side in mere seconds.

He tried to get up, but the doctor pushed him on the floor. "Don't. Move."

Pietro froze. "What happened?"

"You are enhanced." Doctor Kennedy said. "You have a sped up metabolism, which saved your life, and causes you to be many times faster than a normal human being. But I think you noticed that last bit."

"I don't remember." Pietro frowned. "I don't remember anything."

"It seems like you're gonna have to regain control." Kennedy said. "I don't think it's wise if you leave this room, I'll ask someone if we can get something up here to wash you."

Pietro nodded he felt a surge through his blood. "I need to run."

"That's dangerous." Kennedy said. "I advise a…"

To the window. To the bed. To the wall. To the door. Pietro flew through the room like a whirlwind.

"Pietro!" Kennedy yelled. "PIETRO!"

But Pietro was unstoppable. He wanted to go outside, run from the east coast to the west and then back again.

He ran back from the window to the wall again and suddenly found he was floating in the air.

"Pietro Django Maximoff." Wanda was standing in the doorway, her hair still damp, her voice cold.

"I'm gonna go get something so you can wash yourself," Kennedy excused herself and fled the room.

The red strings danced Pietro back to the bed.

"Where did you learn to do that?" Pietro asked.

"At the same place you learned how to run like an idiot." Wanda sat down in front of him. "I understand that you are confused and you need to run. But you need to be careful."

She looked him in the eyes, and Pietro saw some things he didn't understand yet.

"I cannot lose you again." She said.

"I wish you would tell me what happened." Pietro sunk his head in his hands, grabbing two fistfuls of hair and pulling. "I don't understand."

Wanda sighed sympathetically, pulling his balled up fists from his head and holding his hands in hers.

"She will get to." Doctor Kennedy walked back in with a bucket full of steaming water. "Soon, I promise."

Wanda helped Pietro wash himself and his hair, while doctor Kennedy observed from a distance, making notes.

"Did you experience any memory loss from the moment you woke up to right now?" She asked.

"How would I know?" Pietro asked, while drying his hair. "I wouldn't remember then, would I?"

"Good to see you haven't lost your sense of humor," an awful, familiar voice chuckled from the doorpost.

Pietro pulled the towel from his head and looked up. "Stark."

A shadow pulled over Stark's face. "Oh. You remember."

Pietro made movements to leave the bed, but Kennedy pushed him back. "You need to leave the bed calmly, or you really _will_ rupture something."

"We talked about this," Tony Stark held up his hands. "I don't suppose you remember, but we did."

"Tell them about your dream, Pietro," Wanda said calmly, handing him a fresh shirt.

"Ashes." Pietro repeated what he'd told Wanda yesterday. "A bed."

Stark looked to Wanda, puzzled. "A bed?"

"We hid under a bed for two days when your shell was dumped in our living room." Wanda said. She turned to Kennedy. "I don't think it's a good idea for Stark to be here. I know he's done a lot, but I don't think Pietro understands. He must learn to live with it all over again."

Kennedy nodded. "I think you're right."

"You're going to send me away?" Stark frowned.

"I appreciate everything you've done for me and Pietro. I want to thank you for being so patient with us." Wanda said. "I must ask you to be a little more patient and wait for the time when Pietro can thank you too."

"Wanda, what are you doing," Pietro tugged on Wanda's shirt.

"Helping you," Wanda said. "I'll explain when you're ready, okay?"

"I can do it myself." Pietro said. "I don't need someone to help me."

"And what makes you so positive of that?" Wanda asked.

He didn't know how he knew, he just knew that he did.

"I _am_ twelve minutes older than you."


	5. CHAPTER FIVE

**I'm astill overwhelmed by the amount of favs/follows/reviews I get. Wow guys. I love you all. Shoutout to Ultimate Queen of Cliffies for beta'ing my story and taking out all the stupid mistakes and extra comma's (I lovveee comma's)  
Enjoy chapter five and tell me what you think!**

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Chapter 5

Pietro looked at the clock. It was nearly four in the morning. He then looked down at his sister, who was soundly asleep on his chest.

Softly, he wriggled himself out from under her, strategically placing a pillow under her arm to replace the bulk of his chest. He grabbed a dirty t-shirt from the ground and tried to sneak out quietly.

He walked as slowly as he possibly could, but he only managed to get as far as the lobby before bursting out the front door, racing towards Central Park.

He cheered, making one, two, three, four laps around Central Park before even thinking about slowing down. He shrugged and did another ten laps.

Then he continued running through New York, from the Brooklyn Bridge, via Queen and Bronx back to Manhattan again. Back in Central Park he finally stopped for a moment, a familiar burn in his lungs and agonizing pain in his legs.

He stumbled back to Avenger Tower, shooting forward and then abruptly stopping again, but the pain in his legs build up until it became unbearable and walking became impossible.

He sat down for a minute to catch his breath.

…

When Pietro opened his eyes, he was still sitting on the street. The stink of both himself and the sewer around him was overwhelming. Gray rain was pouring in his face and his clothes were all torn up. He shivered.

"Pietro! Pietro!" The little girl came running towards him, her greasy hair hidden beneath a woolen shawl. He wasn't nearly as soaked as her, for he had found refuge underneath an old oak, but she was dressed a lot warmer than him.

Where he was wearing a t-shirt, a stolen women's blouse, torn sweatpants and mismatching sneakers, she was snuggly dressed in a woolen coat he'd stolen from a tourist girl, a shawl he'd nicked from a market stall and snow boots he'd found in a trashcan. He wanted to get her better pants, because he knew she was freezing in the torn up jeans, but pants were kind of hard to steal and impossible to find.

He caught the little girl, who was not so little at all any more, in his arms. "Are you okay?"

She nodded and frowned at the sight of his clothes. "What did you do?"

"Picked a fight." Pietro shrugged, but when he saw the disapproval on Wanda's face he quickly started making excuses: "The Gershwin brothers called you a brother-fucker. They taunted me, Wanda! They said horrible things about us! They said… they said…"

Thinking back about the insults, Pietro's heartbeat raced up again and his blood started to boil. He set his jaw. "They said that ma was a slut and that pa touched you, and that I had taken his place now that someone blew him up."

Wanda sighed deeply. "And why would they do that?" she asked, her tone the same as always.

Pietro looked a little self-conscious, but kept quiet.

"You brag a lot about being older for someone who is not attentive at all to the motives of others!" Wanda took a step back. "What am I going to do when you get yourself killed?"

Pietro stubbornly stared at the dirt. He knew that the Gershwins did it in the hope that they could steal his clothes and money (which he barely had), but it still made him so angry, he wanted to rip their hearts out of their chests and shove them down their throats.

"I know what you're thinking," Wanda said softly. "But it's not the way. One day you will teach them, but what matters is not what they say or why they say it. It is not true, Pietro, and we know that, right? So do we care what those two call us? No. You know why? The only reason they're picking on you on that subject is because they're afraid someone finds out that they're fucking."

Pietro looked up at her, frowning. "Seriously?"

"Even a blind man could see!" Wanda laughed. She shook her head and smiled at her brother. "On another note…" she grinned. "Pun intended, I have a gift."

She turned out her pockets, her hands full of dollar, five dollar and even the rare ten dollar notes. "If we're careful, we can eat like two, maybe three months off this!"

"Where did you get that?" Pietro asked. He carefully picked the ten dollar note from the small pile and studied it closely. He had never seen one before.

"I found it on the street," Wanda lied.

Pietro raised an eyebrow. He knew Wanda better than he knew himself, and vice versa, and he saw immediately that she pick-pocketed someone.

"He was really, really fat." Wanda excused herself. "And American!"

Pietro shook his head. "I don't want you to steal anymore, okay?"

"But you steal!" Wanda pointed to the coat and the shawl.

"If I get caught, my problem. I am a boy." Pietro crossed his arms. "You will never steal something again."

"If I get caught," Wanda said in the same tone, "My problem. I can handle it, Pietro."

She turned away, but Pietro seized her wrist. "I can't."

All the anger and tension flew out of the girl's body, as she exhaled at his words. "And how do you think I feel, Pietro? When I'm dressed like this and you're dressed like that?"

She said down next to him. "I don't want to run anymore."

"We have to run," Pietro declared. "If we want revenge, we cannot live a normal life."

Wanda took off her shawl and wound it around Pietro's left shoulder. He looked at her for a brief moment, puzzled, before she explained; "You have a cut there. Did you even notice? Pietro, we need to get off the streets. The time for revenge will come. We don't have to let go of it. But today is not the day. Tomorrow won't be the day. And if we stay here on the streets, you will get a deeper cut one day and it will infect and you will die. Is that what you want? To leave me here?"

Every possible horribly thing that could happen to Wanda when he was dead flashed before his eyes. He needed to be there for her, not only because they would be stronger together, but also because he couldn't imagine losing her to alcohol or drugs, or worse.

"You're right," he nodded, wrapping his arms around her to warm his torso. "Revenge does not come before everything."

Wanda smiled, playing with a small photo she kept hidden in a lined pocket. "Oh, don't worry, though. Revenge is very high up on my list."

…

Pietro awoke to two cold hands on his cheeks and a scowl; "What are you doing here you idiot?"

He opened his eyes, frowning at the angry face in front of him.

"I am okay." He said, grabbing her wrist. "What are you doing here?"

"How do you think I felt when I woke up and the bed was empty?" Wanda sighed. "Pietro, you can't just run off like that."

Pietro looked up at his sister to grant her with a snarky comeback, but he saw her eyes were red and he realized that what he did was selfish. He bit his comment back and averted his gaze. "I'm sorry."

Wanda sighed deeply and pulled her brother in an embrace. "It's okay. You just scared me." She gripped him tighter, balling up the fabric of his shirt in her fists. "I nearly lost you, Pietro, you can't do that to me."

Pietro nodded and picked her up, running back to Avenger Tower. He carried her up seven flights of stairs and put her in a chair. Then he did twelve more laps around the room before collapsing on the bed.

"We need to talk about this with doctor Kennedy." Wanda said. "You really can't move at normal human speed, right?"

Pietro frowned. "I don't know,"

"It's okay." Wanda said. "Try to get some sleep."

Pietro shook his head, scared. "No," he said, his voice slightly unstable. "Wanda, please. Every time I go to sleep, the nightmares come."

"Nightmares?" Wanda frowned.

Pietro swallowed, he felt like someone clasped his throat shut. "Bombs. Fear. Sleeping on the streets. Wanda, all the memories I get back are horrifying. Is this our life?"

He started shaking violently, unable to control himself. "I don't know if I want to remember," he said through clenched teeth. "I don't know if I can."

Wanda climbed next to him on the bed and pulled him under the blankets, making sure every inch of his body was tucked in warm. She then climbed to the headboard and sat down cross-legged, cradling his head in her lap, slowly stroking his hair while he bit back sobs.

"You can let it go, Pietro," She whispered. "Don't worry."

A violent sob jerked through his body. He turned his face inwards burying himself in his sister, crying like a small child.

Wanda cradled him and caressed him soothingly, not trying to calm him down, but trying to make him feel safe. "It's okay," she said. "I'm here, let it out."

So that's what he did. He held onto her like an anchor and cried. Loudly at first, with screams of anger, tensing up all his muscles, and then quietly, laying still with tears running down his face.

And in the end he had cried it all out. I hope to God you don't, but have you ever cried to long and so much, that at last your entire body feels empty? There are no more tears to cry and a certain feeling of peace washes over you?

That was what Pietro was feeling. He softly breathed through his nose, and the air tasted salty to him.

"Wanda," he murmured.

"I'm not leaving," Wanda whispered, wiping a stray tear from the corner of his eye.

"I'm afraid." He said. The hands around his throat tightened up again. "I'm so afraid."

Wanda nodded. "Close your eyes. No dreams for you tonight."

With a swift movement of her arm she closed the blinds to shut out the sun, and then she softly massaged his temples.

After a couple of minutes, Pietro murmured: "Can you sing to me, please?"

Wanda smiled and nodded.

"Śpij i zamknij oczy śnij – śnij,

Śpij i zamknij oczy śnij - śnij

A ja będę twym aniołem,

Twą radością, smutkiem, żalem

Będę gwiazdą na twym niebie

Będę zawsze obok Ciebie,"

She sang it to him twice before she felt his mind falling asleep. She blocked his dreams out, even though she knew doctor Kennedy had told her no more tricks. Pietro just needed a good rest, that was all. He had been recovering non-stop from the moment he woke up.

Her foot was asleep, but she really didn't want to wake Pietro, and after twenty minutes she couldn't really feel it anymore so she figured she'd be able to stay in this position for a while.

Kennedy entered after nearly half an hour. "I heard about your little adventure from last night."

Wanda yawned. "Wasn't exactly how I would've liked it to go. One moment he was there, then I wake up and he's gone, so Mr. Stark and I went to look for him. Stark found him sleeping, but didn't dare to wake him up because the last encounter didn't go so well. I woke him up and he ran us home."

"And he doesn't know how to walk normally?" Kennedy asked.

Wanda shook her head. "I don't think so, he says he's forgotten, and I can't help him either."

Kennedy nodded sympathetically.

"We never talked about our time at Strucker. We didn't talk about the experiments. It was some sort of silent agreement," Wanda said apologetically, "They kept us in separate rooms in the beginning, until we both had it under control."

"It's fine," Kennedy said. "He gets flashbacks, right?"

"Yes, but they're in the form of nightmares." Wanda said. "I've chased the dreams from his sleep this time, because he was too upset."

Pietro mumbled something in his sleep.

"What's it?" Wanda asked.

"My feet are itchy," he mumbled sleepily, lifting himself a little from Wanda's lap and sitting up.

Wanda stretched her sore legs with a groan. The lengths she would go to for her brother…

Doctor Kennedy lifted the sheet and gasped softly. "Pietro, did you run around without shoes on?"

"I couldn't find any," Pietro shrugged.

"You're cut up pretty badly." Kennedy sighed. "Wounds look clean though,"

She pulled the first aid kit out from under Pietro's bed and went looking for the disinfectant. She pulled a bottle out and spread some of it on a piece of clean bandage.

"This is gonna hurt like hell," she said, before she rubbed it all on his feet, cleaning the wounds and binding it close.

Pietro clenched his teeth a little, but didn't make a sound. "Was not that bad," he shrugged.

"Do you want to sleep some more?" Wanda asked.

"Only if you stay here with me," Pietro said.

"Where else am I gonna go?" Wanda grinned.

Kennedy checked Pietro over for more cuts one last time before leaving them alone.


	6. CHAPTER SIX

**Hey guys! Sorry for the long pause... got not much of an excuse, I just stagnated a little bit. Happens to me sometimes. Will try to update more regularly from now on... :) Enjoy and review!**

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Chapter 6.

…

It started with a walk home. Pietro had just finished an twelve hour shift at the factory and was walking to the small apartment he and Wanda called home, when someone matched his pace with Pietro and handed him a small flyer.

"You are Pietro Maximoff, right?"

Pietro frowned and nodded, a little taken a back.

"Think about this," the man said. His hood was drawn forward, but Pietro could see the bearded tip of his chin. "Call us."

Pietro nodded, a little confused, and watched the man disappear in an alley. He shrugged and dropped the flyer on the ground.

He was used to it, ever since it slipped him that his mother was Jewish, Jehovah's Witnesses would come up to him and try to 'save' him and his sister. He was quite sick of it.

He quickly walked home, where Wanda was waiting for him with soup. On Wednesdays Wanda would cook, because she would come home from work at seven PM, and Pietro at eight, giving her plenty of time to fix something of their scarce supplies.

They went to bed early that night, Wanda's morning shift would start at five AM, and even though Pietro could stay in bed until noon, he was wrecked from screwing lids shut all day long. It was boring, tedious, paid badly and the hours were shitty (the factory never closed), but it paid the bills.

Pietro could pay the rent and food, which meant Wanda used her paychecks to save up, mostly because they wanted to go to America, but also in case anything happened and they needed to pay hospital bills.

They were managing, but only just.

The next day, as Pietro walked to the factory again, he saw the flyer still lying on the ground. He picked it up when he saw it was something very different from a 'find Jesus' kind of thing. It wasn't even a real flyer. It was more of a note, written in black ink an annoyingly neat handwriting.

 _We can help you avenge your parents,_ it read, _Call us_. And then a number scribbled underneath.

He frowned, but stuffed the paper in his pocket. Maybe he had to talk this over with Wanda. His day progressed slow as ever, and the piece of paper seemed to burn through his jeans in his leg. He could literally feel the edge of it rubbing his skin.

He came home at two in the morning, softly shaking Wanda awake.

"Wan," he whispered.

"Pietro," She sighed, "I have to work at seven, please go to sleep,"

"You won't." Pietro whispered. "We need to talk,"

Wanda rubbed her eyes and sat up, fixing herself a little. "I hope this is really damn important, Pietro,"

He nodded and pulled the piece of paper out of his pocket. It was slightly damp, torn up and dirty, so Wanda had some trouble reading it.

"So…?" she said.

"Yesterday, when I walked home from work," Pietro started, "Some old guy walked up to me and gave me this. I didn't look at it, I thought it was a…"

"Jehovah's Witness." Wanda nodded.

"No!" Pietro shook his head, "That's the weird thing. I thought so too, so I threw the flyer on the ground."

Wanda clacked her tongue at the mention of littering, but seemed to let it pass. She wasn't that much of the law either, but she wouldn't pass a window to tell Pietro off.

He ignored her and continued: "But when I was walking to work this morning, it caught my eye again. Wanda, I think this is the time!"

"The time?" Wanda frowned.

"You said it right," Pietro nodded. " 'The time for revenge will come.' Wanda, this is our chance. We can go on with this, this _life_ , but this is not our road to revenge on Stark."

"And that anonymous number is?" Wanda pulled up an eyebrow.

"A bigger shot than working our asses off!" Pietro said. "We work twelve hours shifts with no free days! Our pay is crap and we are getting _nowhere_! How are we going to dismantle Stark industries, with your power to scrub toilets? With my technical skills to screw lids on children's toys?"

Wanda sighed. "No, of course not but, Pietro, maybe we need to build a life of our own. We're not stagnating, we're _building_. You can't let revenge rule your heart."

Her slender fingers touched his chest, right in the spot where his heart was.

Pietro's entire body tensed up, frustration surging through him. "I thought you said you wanted revenge as well," he said, tensing his jaw.

"Yes, Pietro, but I also want to live a normal life," Wanda sighed. "I also want to let it go. Revenge is not bringing mom and dad back."

Pietro frowned and his eyes filled with tears as he shook his head in disbelief. "But…"

Wanda hugged him. "Is this what you want for the rest of your life, Pietro? Burning on the inside because of one man? Don't let him fill in your life."

Pietro chewed on his cheek. He was still angry and frustrated, but he saw Wanda's point. He couldn't let it go just yet.

"We could just call, right?" he tried. "See what it is?"

Wanda sighed deeply and pushed Pietro away. "Let it go, Pietro. Go to sleep."

Pietro grinned, gave his sister a peck on the cheek before walking to the bathroom, kicking his shoes off. He heard Wanda turn the television on as he closed the door behind him.

He took a long, hot shower to wash the tension out of his shoulders. He was drying himself off when he heard Wanda cry out.

"Pietro!"

"What?" he yelled back. He quickly got in his pants before running back into the bedroom. "Are you okay?"

Wanda was sitting in the bed, petrified. Her hands were clasped in front of her mouth and she was staring at the screen, wide eyed.

He turned his head in time to see a bomb hit a skyscraper, causing a large explosion. Small shapes were falling from the floors, which, at closer inspection, turned out to be people.

The left corner of the blurry screen read; ' _Emergency broadcast_ '

" _There are reported bombings in Transia,_ " the reporters voice sounded static over the crappy speakers of the old television. " _They haven't been claimed yet, but there are rumors these bombs are dropped by the rebellion._ "

"Pietro," Wanda said.

The footage was too blurry too see, but Pietro knew, deep inside his heart.

"Stark." His voice was cold, and the anger returned at full capacity.

Wanda shook her head.

"Wanda!" Pietro exclaimed, "If this isn't a sign? This is faith."

Wanda tore her gaze from the screen. "You are right,"

Pietro picked up the phone. "I thought so."

…

He woke up, heaving as if he had just run a race. He was covered in sweat.

Pietro took a couple of deep breath and reached out for his sister, but she wasn't there. He shot up.

"Wanda?!" he called. "Wanda!"

She walked into the room with Doctor Kennedy, who was pushing a wheelchair. "Hey, Śpiąca Królewna," she grinned.

Pietro rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. "How long did I sleep?"

It had felt like ages.

"Nearly fifteen hours," Doctor Kennedy shook her head. "Which is extremely weird. Due to your sped up metabolism, you should be fully rested in two sleep cycles,"

Pietro frowned.

"It means you overslept," Doctor Kennedy clarified. "Nearly twelve hours."

"Oh," Pietro smiled apologetically.

Wanda stroke a lock of sweaty hair out of his eyes. "Did you dream?" she whispered, almost inaudibly, keeping their conversation private.

He nodded. "He bombed Transia."

Wanda nodded.

"How did you manage to forgive him?" Pietro shook his head. "How can you?"

"I forgave him, Pietro, because he didn't do anything wrong." Wanda said.

"But…" Pietro protested.

"One day you'll understand," Wanda silenced him. "Or I'll explain it to you. For now, Doctor Kennedy and I have a plan."

Doctor Kennedy picked up from there. "Yes, so put some clothes on and get in that wheelchair."

Pietro shot in a shirt. "I can walk,"

"I know," Kennedy nodded. "But I don't want anyone getting hurt with your super speed, so get in the chair."

Pietro sighed deeply and got up, trying to move himself slowly towards the wheelchair, but feeling it wheel away a little at the force of impact. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm trying, really."

Kennedy nodded. "I know, don't worry about it." She wanted to wheel the chair out of the room ,but Wanda grasped the handles before she could. "I've always wanted to push one."

"When I get better," Pietro grinned. "You sit down in it and I'll push you."

Wanda chuckled. "No way in Hell."

They took him down to the third floor, where the gym was located.

"Tony is building another base," Kennedy said. Pietro clenched the handgrips a little at the name, but kept quiet. "Well, he's not _physically_ building it, he's having it build, but you get the drill."

Wanda nodded. "That's why it's been so quiet?" she asked.

"Yes," the doctor replied, "But also because he is keeping everyone away to provide the most ideal space for Pietro to recover his memory."

They stopped in front of the racing track, a large oval located in a vacant hall.

"What do you want me to do?" Pietro frowned.

"Run," doctor Kennedy said. "Run until you think you're going to throw up. I think that maybe once you get tired, you'll be able to walk 'normally' again, and if you know what it feels like, you can do it yourself."

Pietro shrugged and jumped out of the chair. The air smelled a little musty and it was a little too warm for his liking, but his own speed send a cool stream of wind in his face and he started running.

He'd completed four laps before he reached full speed, and he kept running for nearly two hours, literally walking through the soles of his runner shoes, shaking them off and keeping on running, running off the bandages on his feet and re-opening the cuts in his soles.

Kennedy's frown grew deeper and deeper with every passing minute, and Wanda got concerned too.

"Shouldn't we stop him?" she asked.

But Kennedy shook her head. "I want him to stop himself."

But Pietro wasn't planning on slowing down any time soon, he wasn't even thinking about it. The surge of adrenaline through his veins after lying still for this long was fantastic, amazing.

After exactly two hours, twelve minutes and seven seconds, Pietro stopped, leaning on a wall and heaving loudly.

"Hungry." He breathed.

Kennedy nodded and handed him bread with some indefinable kind of meat slapped between it. "Running like that costs you a lot of energy."

She waited until he had finished the bread (which he wolfed down like a savage) and then pointed to the wall on the other side of the room. "Can you get over there for me?"

Pietro nodded. He took a few steps, expecting to get there real quick, but looked up frowning when he didn't.

Kennedy grinned. "Get over there as fast as you can, Pietro,"

Pietro stepped forward more deliberately now, with a goal, and surged to the wall. He shrugged at Kennedy, but she seemed to be happy with it.

"Okay," she nodded, penning something down. "Now we're gonna go to your room and we're gonna _walk_ , normally."

Pietro set his jaw, concentrated, and flipped that switch again. He walked to Wanda.

"I don't know what you did, but I think it worked." He grinned a little.

Wanda smiled too, happy. "That means you can come out of seclusion."

"I think it's time to go digging for memories." Kennedy said. "Pietro, do you feel like you have any particular thing or something vague?"

She looked expectant, but Pietro could only shake his head.

"No," he said. "I'm afraid I cannot see them coming."


	7. CHAPTER SEVEN

**Sorry for the long wait guys! I had some stuff that needed sorting out. Enjoy, and pls leave a review! Also, I just started a Jurassic World fic, so here's some shameless self promotion...  
Check it out if you like:  
s/11363444/1/Leader-of-the-Pack  
**

* * *

Chapter seven.

After their successful experiment, Pietro went around Avenger Tower more often. Sometimes he tripped and leapt forward quickly, or something startled him, causing the young man to shoot to the other side of the room, but he was getting used to his own body quickly again.

The nightmares never stopped. Every night he was haunted by a vision from his past, from his years on the street to the dreaded days at the factory.

But not every dream was a nightmare. Sometimes he dreamed of playing out on the gray streets, picking fights with his classmates and playing hide and seek or tag with the children from the block. One night he dreamed of a girl named Misha, with whom he shared his first kiss.

The days after that, butterflies fluttered through his chest every time he thought of her.

But he still felt as if he was incomplete. He had most of his memories back, but he knew he was missing some. There were gaps. Voices he couldn't recall or smells that seemed just out of reach.

He was walking outside together with Wanda, on their way back to Avenger Tower from an ice cream parlor at the other end of the street when he dared to propose what he had been brooding on for a little while now.

"I want to go to Sokovia," he said as casually as possible.

Wanda nearly choked on her chocolate ice cream. "Excuse me?"

"I need to remember," Pietro explained.

"But you do!" Wanda said. "You're going steady!"

"I feel like I'm watching a movie every night!" Pietro shook his head. "They don't feel like _my_ memories. Wanda, I need to go there."

"We need to think about this," Wanda said. "I need it to settle, and we need to make arrangements. I'll get you there. Not tomorrow, but I'll make it work."

She stopped and looked up at him, frowning a little.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

She sighed deeply, her eyes a little watery. "We went through everything together, Pietro. But now I'm alone."

"I'm doing everything I can," Pietro excused himself. He took Wanda's right hand, toying with the ring around her thumb.

She smiled. "It's okay. We're getting there."

She worked her hand out of his and licked her finger, wiping some stray chocolate from his cheekbone. "How do you even get chocolate up there?"

Pietro shrugged, playfully swatting her hand away.

They strolled back to Avenger Tower, eating their ice creams, joking around. Wanda realized, rather painfully, that this was a youth they could've had, if they had been born in a country that wasn't at war.

Watching children play in the fountains, enjoying the afternoon sun, without having to worry about the next bombing, or even dinner, was a little confrontational.

Wanda hoped that they could build that here, in the United States. Maybe if they got everything together, and Pietro was all better, they could end the war. But not today.

They entered Avenger Tower and wanted to take the elevator to the floor with the guest rooms, but saw a few unfamiliar cars in the park.

Wanda frowned. "Who could that be?"

"I wouldn't know," Pietro shrugged. "Let's take a look. Maybe Stark has invited people and they are having a drink on the fourth floor?"

Pietro and Stark was still an edgy combination, but they could walk past each other now. Stark was trying his best not to agitate Pietro, and Wanda kept saying that 'one day he'd understand'.

One day, he'd understand why Stark contributed to mass murder. Pietro rolled his eyes, trying to divert his mind to a different subject. Stark wasn't really worth it.

They went up to the fourth floor, where Stark would invite guests and hold meetings.

Pietro was nibbling on the cone when the elevator light beeped softly, and a soft, female voice announced that they had indeed arrived on the fourth floor.

"…so then I thought, why not today?" They heard the remainder of a sentence float through the air.

Wanda stiffened a little bit and lifted her hand to Pietro's chest. "Maybe you should wait."

"Why should I?" Pietro said, pushing past Wanda into the living.

Tony was sitting there, together with Pepper. He'd met Pepper a couple weeks ago, when Tony hauled her over to go take a look at the new Avenger HQ. Since Stark Inc. sponsored the whole thing, Pepper was happy Tony let her in on things.

Pepper smiled at him. "Hi, Pietro."

Tony, who was in the middle of a sentence, suddenly looked up. "Hey," he said absently. His gaze passed Pietro and focused on Wanda. "Did… did you go out?"

"We had ice cream." Wanda said casually.

"What's going on?" Pietro frowned. He could _feel_ the awkwardness in the air.

The two people sitting on the couch turned around. The woman didn't mean much to him, but the man sitting next to her shifted something in his mind, like a spark landing on tinder.

A fire blazed through his mind. There were so many flashes, not only visual ones, he could also feel literal pain searing through his bones.

He took a deep breath in through the nose, and vaguely noticed that the remainder of his cone shattered on the floor.

"Pietro?" He heard his sisters voice, as if underwater. He felt two big hands grip his underarms, dragging him to his feet.

"Hey! Is he doing okay? Do we need to do something?" someone else asked.

Pietro noticed someone dragging him towards a couch. He noticed someone grabbing his wrist and feeling his forehead.

The world around him danced up and down, as if he had too much to drink, and a nauseating panic welled up in his chest. Then he blacked out.

…

There was no clear flashback. There were images.

Wanda's face smeared with dust, blood and sweat. Her hands a little shakily in his. Face strained, pain and anger and agony. Thin air barely filled his lungs. He never got the idea of 'thin air' when he read about it in books or saw about it on television, but it seemed clear to him now. It immediately seemed to vaporize in his lungs, and it was as if, however deep he breathed, he never seemed to be able to get enough oxygen in.

He took a deep breath and blinked, and the scenery changed.

Dust filled his nose, and in a flash he saw three things. He saw a jet plummeting through the sky, like an eagle, guns blazing. His eyes followed the trajectory and on its path he saw the Hawk kneeling, big eyed, with a child in his arms.

And just a gentle two foot out of reach, he saw a car. A burnt up, blue sedan. Too far for Hawk to reach, but not for him.

There was another flash, and the world smelled metallic to him. Breathing was weird and heavy and nearly impossible, the world was blurry.

Six words dazed to the surface, and he vaguely heard himself say; "What, you didn't see that coming?", before crashing to the cold, hard ground.

…

There was a cold towel on his forehead and he was lying on something soft.

"Didn't see that coming…?" He murmured.

There was a soft chuckle in the background.

"Maybe it is better if you keep quiet," he heard his sister whisper.

"Oh, I wish the doctor was here!" Tony sighed. "This is by far the most interesting progression you have made since you woke up, Maximoff!"

Pietro sat up, shooting a foul look at Stark. He tasted blood in his mouth. "What happened?"

"I did," a familiar voice said behind him. "And I'm sorry."

"I saw an island in the sky…" He said to his sister.

She frowned and looked up to Stark. "Until now his flashbacks have been… how do you say… in the right order…?"

"Chronological," a lady breastfeeding a baby said from the other couch.

Pietro swallowed another bit of blood and tentatively felt around the cut in his cheek with his tongue, wincing a little when he pushed too hard. "I am really sorry, but am I supposed to know you already?"

The lady shook her head, and he sighed a little relieved. "Good," he said, extending his hand. "My name is Pietro Maximoff."

"Linda," she said. "This is little Nathaniel Pietro Barton."

Pietro frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Maybe this is going a little too quick," Wanda said, moving in front of Pietro protectively.

"Wait, wait, do we talk or do we let him remember?" Tony asked. He'd just poured himself another drink and was observing from a distance, with a spark of amusement in his eyes. Asshole.

"And let him crash to the ground again biting off his own tongue?" Pepper said, a little heated. "I say everyone out and let Wanda get him up to date?"

"Shouldn't someone who was there get him up to date?" The man with the familiar voice said. Now Pietro turned to look at him, he saw it was the Hawk from his flash.

"Can everyone _please_ shut up?" he asked.

All heads turned, and Pepper grinned a little.

"Why is there a baby named after me?" he asked.

"What did you see, Pietro?" Wanda sat down next to him and took his hand. This little contact anchored him, made him feel more secure and less alone in that big room.

"The island was floating in the sky. There was a smell of dust and ashes." Pietro bit his lip. "There was the roaring of jet engines in my ears and the taste of blood in my mouth. I collapsed to the ground and everything turned black."

The Hawk sat down in front of him, next to Linda. "You saved my life there, Pietro." He said. "You did, and now you can't even remember what your mother smelled like."

"Cinnamon and sawdust." Pietro said.

Wanda smiled, "He's getting better at it."

"Can I know who he is?" Pietro asked his sister.

"Who do you think he is?" Tony asked.

Pietro glanced up at the man. Looking at him made his breath go faster and his heartbeat go up. "The Hawk."

Tony chuckled a little. "Yes, well, in fact…"

"Who are you?" Pietro asked again, staring at his hands.

There was a short silence, before he said. "Clint Barton."

"Barton," Pietro repeated. The name didn't sound familiar to him. "I don't know who you are."

"Well," Barton shrugged. "You saved my life. We thought you were dead for a bit and…" he stopped abruptly when Wanda glanced at him, sharply.

"You thought what?" Pietro looked up. There was another wave of nausea, so he looked back down again.

"Pietro, are you okay?" Wanda asked softly in their own language.

He silently shook his head.

"Could you please leave?" Wanda asked Barton. She wrapped an arm around her brother. "Keep breathing," she whispered.

When everyone had left the room, Wanda pulled him a little more upright. "What happened?"

"Wanda," Pietro said, his voice a little unstable. "Did I die?"


End file.
